The worms don’t seem too interested, do they? And no, the experiment isn’t over yet. I’m leaving the condoms in there. It took my compost tumbler a good 9+ months to really get the condoms broken down in the slightest…I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s still plenty of pieces in there. A small-scale backyard composting project isn’t going to produce crazy hot composting temperatures for a sustained period of time (which is definitely why my Sun Chips bag is still intact a good 10 months after putting it in).

I’m going to make a phone call to the local commercial composting facility and see how they react to the idea of composting latex…this should be fun.

It’s been about 6 weeks since I started the condoms-in-the-worm-bin experiment.

There’s not really much to report other than that the condoms are still in the bin. They’re covered in springtails and what looks like mites. I’ve caught worms sitting in them, but it’s a rarity and it’s definitely leading towards my initial guess.

It looks like the condoms will be there until the microbes eat them up. Worms don’t appear to be all that attracted to natural latex…I don’t see any real munching marks on them.

Although it doesn’t seem like much, I’m still wagering that they’ll be degraded within a 6 month time frame. What do you think?

All in all, who cares? The fact that they didn’t drive my worms out of the bin is a small victory, I think. At the end of all this, I’ll have a Youtube video showing the project from start to finish…what a fun project!

You may remember a few months ago when I put expired latex condoms in my compost tumbler…eventually the microbes gobbled them up, and they are now gone.
How do you think worms will respond to them? My worm bin is chock full of critters other than worms, so I think that even if the worms don’t want them, everything else in the bin will eat them over time. Let’s find out. Does this make me a bad father?
From left to right, we have the untouched condom, the barely tampered with condom, and then a shredded condom on the right:

What’s the point of this? Honestly, I have no idea. It’s not like everyone has expired (or used) condoms just sitting around waiting to compost. Well, I’ll keep you posted on the progress and of course I’ll have a dorky video at the end of the process, too.